


Over Now

by illwynd



Category: Thor - All Media Types
Genre: Dark, Gen, Horror, M/M, Post-Ragnarok, Thor Ragnarok SPOILERS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-02
Updated: 2017-11-02
Packaged: 2019-01-28 09:49:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12603888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/illwynd/pseuds/illwynd
Summary: A dark post-Ragnarok ficlet in which things are not okay.





	Over Now

**Author's Note:**

> SPOILER WARNING: This fic contains spoilers for Thor: Ragnarok, with a darker twist. 
> 
> Takes place sometime after the movie. Also takes inspiration from Rune Thor from during the last comics Ragnarok. Can be read as gen or past thorki. Title stolen from the Alice in Chains song of the same name. 
> 
> Happy Day of the Dead/Thor movie US release day, all!

Thor watched, during the battle, as the enemy tore off his brother’s head.

He watched, eyes fixed on the bloody sinews dangling and swaying, taking in the way Loki’s body crumpled as it fell, the strange angles of the limbs, the dripping cascade of blood from where his head still swung, held in a raised fist. It was a terrible and wretched thing to see. But perhaps the strangest part of it was how little Thor found it affected him.

He had seen Loki die too many times before. And he had sworn to himself that he would not mourn him again. He was surprised to find that his vow had been true, but it was not his resolve that was sparing him grief.

He felt little. Almost nothing. He had felt more at the loss of his hammer, the mighty tool crushed as he stared in horror like he would never again be whole. He had felt far more at the loss of his eye, the same injury his father once suffered, the searing pain and the shock of half his vision going dark in a single moment that seemed brighter than an exploding star.

In comparison, this was… dull. Expected. Hearing Loki’s scream cut off when his head was separated from his body felt merely like an inevitability. Watching the blood pour briefly down the enemy’s arm before his grisly trophy was tossed aside onto rough ground—Thor merely found himself thinking how fitting it was for Loki to meet his end through such betrayal, being slain by those he had feigned alliance with, who had deceived him in turn.

Thor watched for only a moment as the dark head bounced and rolled and disappeared amongst all the ruin. Then he heaved a sigh and turned back to the battle, which still needed to be won. 

The last time he and his brother had parted, upon Sakaar, Thor had felt nothing but a brief, shallow weariness and a certainty that Loki would survive. He was quite good at that, after all; he had made of it a habit. Thor had been reasonably sure that Loki would find his way back as well, if only to bother him further. The thought had stirred a wisp of dread in his belly. Not hope. Not longing such as he once would have known. But there was no going back to the way things had been. He could not unlearn the lessons Loki had taught.

Not even when they were reunited (if it could be called such a thing) and Loki seemed to desire to stand again at Thor’s side and seemed ready to behave himself for that purpose. Thor could not truly make himself believe it. He did not truly want to.

And now, in the battle’s aftermath, he wandered back over to where Loki had been killed, and he found his brother’s head miraculously unmarred but for its first terrible injury. Thor lifted it from the ground. Pushed the sticky tangle of black hair away from empty eyes. Rubbed at a smeared bloodstain, closed the heavy lids with his thumbs. Gazed upon the once-beloved face, waiting for the grief to begin.

It did not.

Thor felt nothing—not a hollow, not even cold. Just an awareness that he was now alone. The only thing he felt moved to do was to find Loki’s trampled body and build a pyre upon which to burn it, and so he did so, a dutiful sensation all through him and a humming quiet in his mind. He laid his brother’s flesh down and lit the kindling, watched it as the fire grew. Sat near while the flames licked and crackled and sputtered. Yet he kept Loki’s head upon his knee, kept it from the burning.

And he gazed into the heat-haze and remembered old tales from his father’s distant past. Old legends of Mimir.

Thor’s growing magecraft was not enough for such a feat. Not enough to bring back Loki’s voice to counsel him, if he would ever have considered such a thing. If Loki’s counsel, even in death, could have been trusted to whisper more than lies.

But Thor was now powerful enough that he could preserve the flesh. The torn edges of the neck, crusted over and blackened, the blood long since drained away. The sunken-shadow orbits of Loki’s eyes—had they not always been deep? Now, dead and motionless, they were deeper still.

Forever this relic would be just as it was now. Thor ensured that, tracing his fingers over cold bluish pallor of sharp features while he muttered the spell, and it did not even amuse him to ponder what Loki might have thought of this. If he might have wryly praised Thor’s new skill, or if he would have kept silent, or cursed and screamed.

And then, missing the sensation of a weight upon his belt, Thor tied his brother’s hair there, and he found it comforting. Sometimes he reached down to stroke his fingers through soft black locks.

Nothing else could ever occur between them. All of it was done.

Sometimes, at night, after he unhooked Loki’s corpse-head from his belt and laid it down with the rest of his gear, he found himself thinking of how things had been since their last reunion. They had been nothing but civil to each other, a coolness settled in Thor’s belly and Loki staying obediently at the distance at which Thor kept him. Only a few times did Thor catch the starved flash in Loki’s eyes; it was gone, gone back to determined calm, as soon as Loki realized he had been caught looking.

Thor never asked. And Loki never said a word about it either, for which Thor was glad: nothing was ever going to be resolved between them, and he no longer had the will to try. He would settle for peace. For distance, keeping out of each other’s way.

Then even the looks had stopped, and Thor had breathed his gratitude.

He had been glad to finally be able to cease. To set it all aside as if it had never been.

And in their final conversation, Thor had no inkling that it would be the last. No lingering instinct of an older brother. No protectiveness, no thought to watch over the one whose hand he had once held while they stumbled into the world together. Merely Loki’s voice, level and emotionless, telling Thor his plan so that he would not think the worst when Loki appeared to turn sides once more.

Thor had shrugged and nodded and told him to do whatever he wished. Thor would not mind it much anymore.

Silence for a moment. Neither saying anything. Loki standing as if frozen, Thor’s face turned aside, his lost eye toward his brother.

Then Loki had slipped away. And when next Thor had seen him, it was with Loki dangling, held by the throat, limbs kicking and flailing, angry choked cries sneaking out.

Once Thor’s heart would have answered. Once he would have been ready to raze whole realms at the sight.

Now, gazing at his brother’s face, stroking a finger down a cold cheekbone, he felt nothing, nothing but exhausted relief. It was all over now. His brother was gone, and what Thor had discovered was that he had lost nothing he needed. Nothing that was truly part of him. Nothing he had to mourn. 

Without Loki… Thor was still himself. Only so much calmer, without that misplaced love.

Steadier, as if he were made of a different kind of storm.


End file.
